Video 5:58
Head of the DPP retires

Danielle Parry
Fri Feb 01 23:06:00 EST 2013

The outgoing Northern Territory Director of Public Prosecutions Richard Coates reflects on 30 years of work in law and justice.

Transcript

DANIELLE PARRY, PRESENTER: After almost three decades working as a lawyer, magistrate and then Director of Public Prosecutions, Richard Coates has retired this week. I spoke to him about the recent explosion in prison numbers and the impact of alcohol on the criminal justice system.

DANIELLE PARRY: Well during your career you've been the head of the DPP and also the head of the Justice Department. During that time, prison numbers have blown out massively. What has been going on?

RICHARD COATES: When I started at Justice there was about 600. That would be in 2001 and now it's about 1500 so the prison population's gone through the roof and it's largely increased due to increasing numbers of Indigenous prisoners and sadly they're there because it's usually an act of violence against another Aboriginal person and that person is all too often a woman who's been in a domestic relationship with the offender, so domestic violence in the Indigenous community is driving the numbers up. There's also quite a number of people who are, more so than anywhere else in Australia, who are in jail for driving offences but in the Territory we've got some people that would be on their 20th drunk driving or 20th drive disqualify - there's not much else the courts can do other than send the person to jail in those circumstances.

DANIELLE PARRY: Does jail work as either a deterrent or a rehabilitation tool in the Territory, do you think?

RICHARD COATES: Look, I think there are just so many people in jail it's very difficult for the jail to put the energy and resources into rehabilitation. They're drowning, not waving. They're really under the gun just to find, to house and feed prisoners so not enough's happening I think with programs. Prison has a limited, limited impact as far as deterring people from committing crimes, especially when they're drunk and passionate - they really don't think of the consequences.

DANIELLE PARRY: You sound pretty despondent or frustrated with the way the system is working.

RICHARD COATES: Well you know, with myself and lots of other people have put a lot of energy and hope into, to working in the system to try and get better results and to see it just getting worse is, is fairly depressing.

DANIELLE PARRY: The Territory Government's solution to stemming the flow of the rivers of grog and the damage that they're doing is to introduce mandatory alcohol rehabilitation. Do you think that that will work?

RICHARD COATES: The previous system with the banned drinkers register was showing some early grounds for optimism. If this other proposal is, if there is a proper proposal then I'd like to see it introduced as soon as possible and it do something to try and curb the level of drinking.

DANIELLE PARRY: What proportion of the cases you deal with involve alcohol in some way?

RICHARD COATES: I would've thought about 70 percent.

DANIELLE PARRY: And how do you feel about that?

RICHARD COATES: Well it, alcohol is symptomatic of other social problems within the communities. I guess it's about dealing with society going through a period of great turmoil. People need jobs. People need hope and there's not a lot of that around at the moment and people are turning to grog to deaden the pain and they're just causing more trouble.

DANIELLE PARRY: We've talked about imprisonment rates but there are also more minors in jail than ever before and in your annual report you lamented the pressure that's put upon you to put even more minors behind bars. What do you think is the solution to that problem and why aren't you pursuing more diversionary solutions then?

RICHARD COATES: Well a lot of the kids who are in detention in the Northern Territory are in detention for fairly serious offending and because there isn't any other family or positive other option available and I think when magistrates do have options available to them to rather than send a child to detention they will, they will look seriously at these other options. What we do know is with children less is best and the less involvement and the less punitive approaches to dealing with children the better results we get.

DANIELLE PARRY: Recently Justice Dean Mildren in the Supreme Court raised some concerns about mandatory life for murder sentencing requirements. Do you agree with those concerns?

RICHARD COATES: Well I've always thought that judges should have a full discretion in relation to sentencing and I think one size does not fit all. Courts should have a discretion in sentencing and if we don't like what they do or I don't like what they do and what they do isn't appropriate well then I can appeal the inadequacy of the sentence and have a, a higher court look at it. But generally in my view courts get it right and they should be trusted to use their discretion

DANIELLE PARRY: Richards Coates that's all we have time for. Thanks very much for being on the program.